The Broncos are smarting from the 43-8 spanking by Seattle in the Super Bowl last month, Peyton Manning’s 38th birthday is less than two weeks away and his third and possibly last season in orange is looming. The similarities in motivation between them and the most successful mega-roster loading in NFL history— the 1994 49ers, who were dying to get over the Cowboys’ hump—are fairly obvious.

On the other hand, so is the similarity to the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles, branded with the unfortunate “Dream Team” nickname by one of their unfortunate flops, Vince Young.

It’s safe to say the debacle of the Eagles’ next two seasons scared much of the NFL straight … until now. Then again, since teams have rarely even tried it in the 20 years since Deion Sanders and Co. showed up in San Francisco, the entire NFL has seemed reluctant to go all-in as brazenly as the Broncos are.

Lots of teams have proclaimed their seasons were Super Bowl-or-bust, but few have loaded up with so many newcomers in order to get there—a Reggie White here, a Randy Moss there, but not a wave of them.

In the first 24 hours of NFL free agency this week, the defending AFC champions made the biggest splash by far. In come cornerback Aqib Talib (No. 8 on Sporting News’ free-agent ranking), safety T.J. Ward (15th) and defensive end DeMarcus Ware, who would have vaulted into the top five had he been released by the Cowboys long before the salary-cap deadline.

But it was tough not to be awed by how the Eagles—coming off a miraculous division title behind the revitalized Michael Vick—loaded up in the summer of 2011. In came Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Jason Babin, Cullen Jenkins and, to be Vick’s backup, Young.

For what it’s worth, Young also dubbed those Eagles “the Miami Heat of the NFL.’’ That was a year after LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh had joined forces in the NBA, to later win two straight championships.

That was also a year before the Lakers went for a similarly all-in offseason, adding Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol. Two years removed from back-to-back championships, the Lakers melted down. They fired their coach, got swept out of the playoffs, lost Bryant to a torn Achilles, let Howard leave in free agency, and are now one of the NBA’s worst teams.

As for those Eagles?

They went 8-8, and the organization started backpedaling from the “Dream Team” tag long before it was over. They went 4-12 the next year, Andy Reid was fired, and by the start of this past season, all five aforementioned signees were gone.

Essentially, they were the anti-49ers.

Like the current Broncos, the 1994 Niners were hurting from two straight ugly playoff endings, to eventual champion Dallas in the NFC title game. That team brought in Sanders, Rickey Jackson, Ken Norton Jr. and Gary Plummer, and they did as they were paid to do: vanquish the Cowboys and win the Super Bowl.

The Cowboys returned the favor the next year, signing Sanders right back away from the 49ers and winning the Super Bowl again.

But even that was only one marquee grab, not three (or five).

Bringing in Ware, Talib and Ward makes the Broncos look Super right now. They can only hope that next February, they’re not waking from a bad “dream.”